Len Deighton - Spy Hook

But once across the East-West frontier the landscape is lonely and tranquil. The Democratic Republic enjoys an agricultural landscape not yet sullied by shiny cars and new houses. Here the farms are old and picturesque. Big breeds of horses have stubbornly resisted the tractors and men and women still do the hard work.

It was a lovely evening when we landed in Berlin, this glittering little capitalist island, with its tall concrete office blocks and sparkling streets, set in a vast green ocean of grassy communism. The sun was low and orange-coloured. Tall cumulus dominated the eastern skies, while to the west the grey storm clouds were smudged and streaked across the sky as if some angry god had been trying to erase them.

I came down the steps from the plane carrying Werner's briefcase while he staggered under the weight of the chinaware. Ahead of us the other passengers straggled on their way to customs and immigration.

Berlin-Tegel is in the French Sector of occupied Berlin. This small airport is technically under the control of the French air force. So the incongruous presence of four British military policemen was especially noticeable, if not to say disturbing. They were dressed in that unnaturally perfect way that only military policemen can manage. Their shoes were gleaming, their buttons bright and their khaki had knife-edge creases in all the places where creases were supposed to be.

And if the incongruous presence of British 'redcaps' was not enough, I now noticed that one of them was a captain. Such men are not commonly seen standing and staring in public places, for MP captains do not patrol airports to make sure there are no squaddies going around improperly dressed. A quick glance round revealed two British army vehicles – a khaki car and a van – drawn up on the apron. Behind them there was a blue van bearing the winged badges of l'armee de Fair. A few yards behind that there was a civilian police car too. Inside it there were a couple of cops in summer uniforms. Quite a police presence for a virtually empty airport.

As we walked across the apron the four British MPs straightened up and stared at us. Then the captain strode forward on a path that intercepted us.

'Excuse me, gentlemen,' said the British captain. He was a diffident young man with a large moustache that was less than bushy. 'Which of you is Mr Samson?'

Always afterwards I wondered exactly what made Werner unhesitatingly say, 'I'm Bernard Samson. What is it, Captain?'

Werner could smell trouble, that's why he said it. He could smell trouble even before I got a whiff of it, and that was very quick indeed.

'I'll have to ask you to come with me,' said the Captain. He glanced at the sergeant – a burly forty-year-old with a pistol on his belt – and the looks they exchanged told me everything I needed to know.

'Come with you?' said Werner, 'Why?'

'It's better if we sort it out in the office,' said the captain, with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

I'd better go with him, Werner,' said Werner, continuing the act.

I nodded. Surely the soldiers could hear Werner's German accent. But perhaps they hadn't been told that Bernard Samson was English.

As if demonstrating something to me, Werner turned to the captain and said, 'Am I under arrest?'

'Well…' said the captain. He'd obviously been told that arresting a man in public was something of a last resort, something you only did when sweet talk failed. 'No. That is… Only if you refuse to come.'

'We'll sort it out at your office,' said Werner. 'It's a stupid mistake.'

'I'm sure it is,' said the captain with marked relief. 'Perhaps your friend will take the package.'

'I'll take it,' I said.

The captain turned to one of the corporals and said, 'Help the gentleman, Corporal. Take the parcel for him.'

I had Werner's briefcase in my hand. It contained his passport and all sorts of other personal papers. If they took Werner to their police office, it might take an hour or two before they discovered that he was the wrong man. So I followed the corporal and Werner's parcel of china ware and left Werner to his fate.

With the military policeman acting as my escort my passage through customs and immigration got no more than a nod. In the forecourt there were lines of taxi cabs. My cab driver was an unshaven youngster in a dirty red tee shirt with the heraldic device of Harvard University crudely printed on the front. 'I want an address in Oranienburger Strasse. I know it by sight… go to the Wittenau S-Bahn station.' I said it in slow German, in earshot of the soldier. It would give them a confusing start, for Oranienburger Strasse stretches across town from the airport to Hermsdorf. Not the sort of street in which you'd want to start a door-to-door inquiry.

Once the taxi was clear of the airport I told the driver that I'd changed my mind. I wanted to go to Zoo Station. He looked at me and gave a knowing smile that was inimitably berlinerisch .

'Zoo Station,' he said. It was a squalid place, the Times Square of West Berlin. ' Alles klar .' In that district there was no shortage of people who would help a fugitive to hide from authority of any kind. The cab driver probably thought I was outsmarting the army cops, and he approved.

Yes, I thought, everything is clear. No sooner had I finished talking to him than the bloody D-G signalled to Berlin to have me arrested. It was artful to do it in Berlin. Here the army was king. Here I had no civil liberties that couldn't be overruled by regulations that dated from wartime. Here I could be locked away and forgotten. Yes, alles klar, Sir Henry. I am hooked.

Don't ask me what I hoped to achieve. I don't know what I was trying to do beyond gain time enough to collect my thoughts and see some way of extricating myself from this mess.

My mind worked frantically. I dismissed the idea of picking up the Smith & Wesson snub-nosed.38 and five hundred pounds' worth of mixed currency small denomination paper money that I used to keep in Lisl's safe but now kept in a twenty-four-hour safe-deposit box in the Ku-Damm. Neither ready cash nor flying lead would help me if the Department was after my blood. I dismissed too the Austrian passport that was sewn into the lining of a suitcase in a room in Marienfelde. I could become Austrian, if I raised my voice an octave and kept a tight grip on my nose. But what for; by Monday they would have good recent photos of me circulated, and being a phoney Austrian wouldn't help.

A taxi took Werner's box of china round to the hotel with a note for Ingrid Winter that I'd gone with Werner to the cinema. For anyone who knew us well, the idea of such an excursion was absurd. But Ingrid didn't know us very well, and it was the only excuse I could think of that would prevent her making inquiries about us for two or three hours.

Some of my actions were less well reasoned. As if driven by some demon from my over-active past, I took a second cab and asked for Checkpoint Charlie. It was almost night by now but my world was tilting towards the sun and it was not dark. My cab edged through the traffic as battalions of weary tourists wandered aimlessly around the neon and concrete charms of the Europa Centre and chewed popcorn and 'curry-wurst'.

'Checkpoint Charlie?' said the driver again just to be sure.

'Yes,' I said.

Once clear of the crowds we headed for the Canal. This quiet section of the city provides the shortest route to Checkpoint Charlie. No tourists walked the gently curving banks of the Landwehr Canal and yet there was more history in this short stretch than in the entire length of the Kurfursten Damm.

It was not always such a neglected backwater. The street names of yesterday tell their own story. Bendlerstrasse, from which the Wehrmacht marched to conquer Europe, is now named after Stauffenberg, architect of the failed anti-Nazi putsch. But is there some militaristic ambition burning deep inside the town planners who keep Bendler Bridge still Bendler Bridge?